


To Mend

by Gotcocomilk



Series: Coco Writes Soulmates [8]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon-Typical Violence, I have too much world building designed for a 5k au, Loyalty, M/M, Protectiveness, wounds from soulmates scar over gold
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:06:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24439405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gotcocomilk/pseuds/Gotcocomilk
Summary: “Cut the crap, Urahara. You know damn well what I’m talking about. The scars, the gold ones— you gave them to me. I’ll wait, but not forever.”The arm under his fingers went deathly still, for a long moment. Then Urahara sighed, looking up to smile out of the shadows of that damned hat. Ichigo wasn’t going to run from how much that smile made his neck go warm.“You really are too good for me, Kurosaki-san.”
Relationships: Kurosaki Ichigo/Urahara Kisuke
Series: Coco Writes Soulmates [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1681417
Comments: 23
Kudos: 573
Collections: UraIchi Week 2020





	To Mend

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Absolem0](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Absolem0/gifts).



> This was inspired by the beautiful art of [Abs](https://twitter.com/Absolem0/status/1068644982167400448?s=20), and is a gift for her. Love you darling, I hope you enjoy this :D
> 
> This soulmate AU is inspired by kintsugi, and the idea is that wounds inflicted by soulmates heal gold (which, actually, isn't really the point of kintsugi but really I'm just stealing the aesthetic and not the philosophy behind it, though there are still elements of it here)

Kisuke pretended not to see the gold scar, round and beautiful in Ichigo’s chest. He pretended not to see how it glimmered in the light after training, pretended the scar doesn’t ghost into his memories to stick and linger. He pretended it wasn’t important when Ichigo asked, waving it away with a laugh and careful silence.

He pretended it hadn’t cut into his soul like a knife to match the wound he’d given Ichigo. He pretended so much, in the days before he sent his soulmate to die.

But this was no surprise; Kisuke has always been so good at lying. A hundred cuts lined Ichigo’s body, by the time the boy leaps into Soul Society. A hundred, glimmering cuts, laced with gold like poison.

Kisuke wished he could say he had never hated himself more for this, but that would be a lie. There was far too much sin on his hands for a hundred scars on his soulmate to matter.

Kisuke couldn’t afford to care, not even now.

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

“You belong in the Eleventh,” the man with the spear said, eyes hungry for a fight and weapon tossed over his shoulders like the spear was a bat. He looked like a delinquent, the sight familiar enough that Ichigo almost did a double take.

But the gold marks lining the man’s arms were what caught Ichigo’s eyes. They glinted bright and ruthless, a match for the wounds on Ichigo’s skin.

None of them rivaled the gold circle standing proud on his chest, but few things could.

He’d fought enough people in his life to recognize hunger for a fight. He felt it too, the beginnings stirring in his blood like a hunger he couldn’t control. It was excitement, to match the protective strength that never left him.

An older brother’s instincts never faded, not even when they needed a sword instead of fists.

“What’s the Eleventh,” he asked, feeling the edges of blood dripping down his cheek. Damn, the wound really wouldn’t stop bleeding.

Ichigo wondered if it would scar over. Gold wouldn’t look bad there, but he’d look like more of a thug than he already did. Rukia wouldn’t ever stop giving him shit for that, he thought, and felt resolve boil up in his veins like fire.

He would save her. He would let the fight swarm his blood, and he would save her.

The man blinked, loud and offended. “Wha— you don’t even know the divisions? Damn, you _are_ a fool.”

He waved away Ichigo’s noise of protest, the loud _hey_ that echoed between white stone walls.

“But your scars,” the man said, with a smile that looked like a predator about to bite. “If you can raise your sword against your match long enough to get those scars, it means you have guts in a fight. I like that.”

Ichigo didn’t know what that meant, but it didn’t matter. He’d ask Rukia later, or the man himself once Ichigo had beat him into the ground. There were more important things than asking after cryptic comments better suited to Urahara than a man ready to do battle.

It didn’t matter. Ichigo would fight hard anyway, fight until one of them was left standing.

He had people to protect.

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

He had people to protect, and he wasn’t strong enough.

The steam ghosted across his face, like the feel of a thousand cherry blossoms burning his skin. It was hot as fire, prickling and uncomfortable. With the bruises and cuts that lined his skin, it felt almost cool.

Ichigo, for all the pressure that lingered on his mind, liked the steam.

“Hey, Yoruichi,” he called, a day’s training sinking into his bones as the water sunk into his skin to heal him. His muscles were tight with strain, but they loosened with each moment of steam. They weren’t strong enough yet, not when Rukia was still set to be executed. He wasn’t strong enough yet, not without Bankai.

But it didn’t matter. He would grow strong, if it cost him everything and all his will. With people to protect, Ichigo would shatter every limit in his body like bones.

His chest, glittering gold and bright through the water, proved that.

“What is it?” She answered, stepping towards him with human feet. He closed his eyes against a blush, against the sight of his teacher standing there in nude and unashamed glory. Damn woman never put on clothes, and Ichigo could only blush so much in a day.

There was splashing next to him, loud enough that he knew she’d sunk into the healing water. He shifted, felt the water spill over his skin and the heat drift into his bones.

The bright scar on his chest reflected off the water, round and beautiful.

“My scars didn’t heal gold after I fought Kenpachi, or any of the others.”

The splash of water stilled, until Ichigo couldn’t hear anything at all. The ripples faded away, and he could see the gleam of gold clearly across the water. Then Yoruichi sighed, annoyed and quick. It was the kind of sigh that meant there were answers lingering in the air between them, but the woman wouldn’t speak them.

It was the kind of sigh that Ichigo respected enough to not press further.

“Ask Kisuke when you get back home, Ichigo. He’ll have your answers.”

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

The man who had taken Rukia— her brother, and how could any brother stand back when a sister was in danger— had no gold scars. He had no scars that Ichigo could see at all, skin unmarked and expression cold as ice.

But he seemed to stare at Ichigo’s, like they were worse trash than Ichigo himself. That was a low bar, for how much the man disliked him.

Ichigo had never wanted to beat someone down more. He had never wanted someone to see sense more, and if it took battle and fury that’s what Ichigo would do. He would make Byakuya understand that a brother was a brother first, and a warrior second.

He would make him see.

For now though, Ichigo didn’t like the man’s cold eyes. Fingers shifted on the hilt of Zangetsu, on this second fateful encounter, and he was ready to fight for his friend.

“You have committed many sins, I see,” the man said, eyes lingering on the patchwork of gold lining Ichigo’s skin. “You should learn better. You will not stop this.”

Ichigo smirked, felt the strength of bankai rumbling beneath his skin. His sword was in his hand, and he had the power to stand and protect.

It was a good day to stand under the sun and fight for what he believed in.

“I don’t give a damn what you think you know about me, but I’m going to save her.”

And he did, with gold glinting on his skin in a dozen places. He didn’t stop Aizen, and that defeat clung to his skin long after his wounds had healed.

But for all that the man had betrayed Soul Society, Ichigo only cared that he’d hurt Rukia. Soul Society’s battles weren’t his, but Ichigo would do anything for his friends.

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

Kisuke looked down at his hands sometimes, and the single mark Ichigo had cut into his skin. It shone a brilliant and damning gold, bright in a way he had never asked for but always wanted.

He looked at it, and didn’t need to wonder what kind of man turned a soulmate into a weapon.

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

“Ichigo, who gave you those scars?” Rukia asked later, as they stood under the sun of a new dawn and watched the sky. All of Soul Society stretched out before them, the prize of peace they’d worked hard to conquer.

Ichigo blinked, slow and lazy. The protective impulse had faded out of his skin, gone to sleep after a long fight and longer days. Battle had soothed something in him he hadn’t known needed to fade away. It had awoken something darker too, and he could feel those claws dig into his skin.

Ichigo didn’t want that darkness to wake up all the way. He wanted to beat it, to not feel the hints of fear running up his back every time he raised his sword.

He wanted to be stronger.

“What scars,” he asked staring up at the sky. They were laying across the grass of a field, peace swirling around them like the voices of the others yelling below. He thought he could hear Orihime’s laughter from here, and he could definitely hear Ishida’s huff.

He needed to be stronger.

She slapped his arm, fond and gentle. It was enough to rock him sideways. “The gold ones, you fool.”

“Oh,” he said, and looked down at where they lingered on his arms. They had shown up after his training to regain his powers, hadn’t they? Those days had been a blur of rough battle and Urahara’s sharp eyes, fueled but the fire that never stopped burning under his skin.

He had earned these learning to fight, he thought, staring down at the gold lingering on his arms.

“I got them training to regain my powers. Hell if I know for sure but probably it was Urahara,” he said, and felt the sting of the man’s blade in his skin. The shopkeeper had been a ruthless teacher, but Ichigo was glad for it.

If not for Urahara, he wouldn’t have saved Rukia.

There was a hiss of breath, loud and shocked. Rukia’s eyes were wide, and her fingers were too tight on his arm.

“Ichigo you—“ She took a breath, stared at him with all the seriousness he had seen. She looked worried, in a way she rarely did. He didn’t want her to look worried. “You don’t know what they are, do you?”

He stared at her for a moment, scowl building with each second that passed. Her eyes looked too sharp for the relaxed moments after a fight, for the moments after they had survived the beginnings of a war and an execution.

They had been soft and happy, just minutes ago. Those were the eyes Ichigo wanted for his friend, those were the eyes Ichigo had fought for. Soul Society was bright and warm around them, but Rukia’s eyes looked brutal. Ichigo didn’t like that look, not when they had just earned their freedom and victory.

He didn’t like how sad they looked.

“Of course not. How the hell am I supposed to know what scars look like on a damn soul?”

Her hand smacked across his arm again, hard enough to make him yelp. It wasn’t hard enough to bruise, and that was more telling.

“It’s not all the scars, you fool. Just the gold ones. The gold ones only ever come from one person. You’re—”

She paused, until her mouth set and the words looked painful. “You are never supposed to have more than one gold scar. It’s a bad sign to have more.”

He snorted, feeling the first hints of soft annoyance crawl up his neck. He was damn tired of people not explaining things. “Yeah, that’s what Byakuya said too. He looked down his nose while saying it too.”

Rukia shook her head, glare firmer now. It was better than the sad eyes. “Shut up, Ichigo. He’s your soulmate.”

Soulmate, she said, like it was something he should understand. Soulmate, she said, like Ichigo could hear that and not walk straight into the man’s shop and demand answers. Soulmate, she said, like Ichigo didn’t feel a flush catch the back of his neck at the thought.

Well, he thought, Rukia’s explanation swimming in his mind. It was time to demand some answers from geta-bōshi himself.

Except it was not time to demand answers, because Ichigo couldn’t go a day without a problem rising up from the ground to challenge him, to threaten his friends and family. He couldn’t even beat this one, not with the skill in his arms and not with the darkness growing under his skin.

The Espada crushed him. He was cut and broken. He wasn’t strong enough, and it made his fingers shake and his teeth clench.

Ichigo needed to be stronger, to protect his friends.

It wasn’t time to demand answers weeks later either, because Ichigo was trapped in a warehouse to control a power he had never wanted. The hollow roared across from him, laughter sharp and vicious.

It had the same scars he did, glittering gold and damning. They stood out brighter on the white skin, in a way that dragged his eyes to the hole standing proud in the hollow’s chest. Ichigo’s eyes lingered on those scars, and he felt his jaw clench.

The hollow was him too.

He would win. He would win, and he’d demand answers of Urahara later. And if Urahara wasn’t ready to give them, that would be fine too. Ichigo would wait until it was the right time, if that’s what the man needed.

But he wouldn’t stumble in the shadow of secrets, when he could fight in the sunlight.

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

“Hey, when you are ready to explain the scars, I’ll be here.”

The quick movements through the shop stopped, for a heartbeat, slowing long enough that Ichigo knew he was right. Then Urahara was all cheerful motion and wry smiles again, moving through between large boxes with careful hands and a swirl of dark cloth.

There was nothing to be done, and they both knew that.

“Well, I’m no expert but scars generally form after you’ve been injured. Unless you mean a specific scar in which case I’d have to examine it to be sure, which is really quite scandalous Kurosaki-san.”

Ichigo snorted, reaching forward to grab the back of Urahara’s arm. It was warm and strong, the muscle of a trained swordsman going stiff under his touch.

Ichigo thought that if Rukia was right he wouldn’t mind. He wouldn't mind wearing Urahara's scars, not when they'd helped him grow stronger and learn to protect. He wouldn't mind wearing Urahara's scars period, and wouldn’t mind holding the man in his arms.

But he’d be damned if he was dealing with the sneaky bastard’s attempts to dodge the question.

“Cut the crap, Urahara. You know damn well what I’m talking about. The scars, the gold ones— you gave them to me. I’ll wait, but not forever.”

The arm under his fingers went deathly still, for a long moment. Then Urahara sighed, looking up to smile out of the shadows of that damned hat.

Ichigo wasn’t going to run from how much that smile made his neck go warm.

“You really are too good for me, Kurosaki-san.”

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

“Your scars say you’ve already been betrayed,” Aizen said, with a smirk that Ichigo didn’t care for. The man’s sword rang empty of meaning, quiet and lonely.

Ichigo hadn’t fought a man with a lonely sword before, and he didn’t care for it now.

“I forgave him already.” He answered instead, remembering the warmth of Urahara’s smile. Ichigo was going to protect him, as he was going to protect everyone. “I’m not wasting time on hating someone who helped me, especially not Urahara.”

Aizan smiled, and raised his blade again. Ichigo could almost hear its desperation.

“You are a fool, Kurosaki-kun. Soon you will be a dead one.”

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

And then, Ichigo won. He fought Aizen and won, until his power flecked away from his skin and he felt fragile and human. He fought until the gold faded from his soul, and his body was slow and heavy. He fought to protect his friends, but he could never protect them again.

The cost was all those gold scars vanishing, and Urahara vanishing with them.

Ichigo didn’t see him again until he was 18 and bitter.

There was a knock on his window in the height of summer, quiet and echoing across the early hours of night. It was small, small enough that Ichigo could have pretended he hadn’t heard it. He could have turned back to his work, to the books spread out before him and the mundane life that he didn’t mind, but was a weakness he couldn’t stand.

Ichigo could have ignored it, but he’d never been a coward.

He pulled open the window with fingers that weren’t calloused, and stared at the man he hadn’t seen in two years.

Urahara looked the damn same. The hat was the same, the half-open yukata with too much skin was the same, the lazy tilt to his cane was the same.

Urahara looked just like he had, when he’d said goodbye to Ichigo two years ago, and Ichigo—

Ichigo was angry. He was aching too, with the heavy apathy that had crusted across his wounds in the long months. He’d missed Urahara, missed all the friends that he’d cut away with his sacrifice. He’d missed the strength he’d lost, protecting everything he held dear.

An evening breeze caught on his skin, blowing in through the window to ruffle his hair.

He felt cold.

“Been awhile, geta-bōshi. You need something?”

There was a pause, as the man lingered on the ground. He adjusted his hat too, with a hand that Ichigo had felt pull him up from the ground and support him. It had trained him too, flicking Benihime through the air.

It had given him gold scars, and he missed those most.

“I’m ready with that explanation, if you’d care for it now Kurosaki-san.”

Ichigo looked at the man, at the small smile and relaxed shoulders. He looked at the way Urahara wouldn’t meet his eyes for longer than a laugh, and the way sharp eyes looked too wary to not be honest.

He looked, and felt all that bitter rage wash away. Ichigo has always forgiven so fast. Grudges were a waste of time, when he lived to protect his people.

Urahara was one of those people.

He leapt down from the window, landing with a crouch on the ground. It was different in this body, strange and heavy in a way he hated.

Ichigo could still handle it, if nothing else. “You waited two years, geta-bōshi. That better have been long enough.”

“It was rude of me to keep you waiting,” Urahara said, as they walked through Karakura. Ichigo couldn’t help but stare at him, eyes hungry for the familiar gleam of bright eyes. It had been so long since he’d seen Urahara.

It had been so long, he thought, and his fingers twitched at his side.There was no one else around when they reached the shop, and no laughing children greeted them as they stepped inside.

An echoing silence filling the space between them, and Ichigo didn’t know how to fill it. Urahara hummed quietly, and Ichigo almost thought it sounded nervous.

Then Urahara— brilliant, mad genius of a man who drove Ichigo to annoyance with all his planning, and the years of silence, and his sneaking charm—

Urahara knelt on the ground.

He knelt, in a pose Ichigo had only seen once before, at the last apology. Strong fingers were steady where they pressed into the smooth wood of the shop, but Ichigo almost thought they should be trembling.

He felt like he’d been frozen into place, caught on the edge of an old memory.

“I’m sorry,” the man said, eyes on the floor and fingers steady. “You are my soulmate, and I scarred you. Marking a soulmate is considered taboo, and I did it anyway. I had to train you, and I didn’t realize what we were until after the first mark.”

Ichigo had known the man was his soulmate for a long time. He’d had years alone to wonder what that meant, and months before that to stare at gold scars and treasure them. Hearing it didn’t make it more real, not for Ichigo.

But seeing Urahara did. Ichigo had missed his friends, after all.

He asked a question he already knew the answer too, felt the annoyance fade into understanding.

“Did you do it to help me save Rukia?”

“Well, yes,” Urahara said, blinking into the gentle light between them. The shop was quiet, but it didn’t feel lonely. “But I could have helped in other ways, avoided the scars—“

Ichigo cut him off with a quick hand. There were no gold marks glinting up from his arms and nothing shining in the light.

He missed those too.

“If you did it to help, that’s enough. I don’t need to hear anything else. And stop kneeling, damn it.”

The man blinked, quiet and slow. Then he stood, staring as if Ichigo had cracked him open and done something truly unexpected.

Ichigo wanted to snort. Damn Urahara and his thousand plans. Damn the man for planning for everything but happiness.

Ichigo sat on the floor, legs folding beneath him and wood pressing into his feet. “What are soulmates, anyway? Are they some sort of like, marriage? Brothers-in-arms?”

“Well,” Urahara began, with a smile and a flap of his fan. Ichigo didn’t even know where he’d pulled it from, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to. “They are usually romantic in nature. Not that they have to be of course, but most soul reapers consider them to be so. You’ve met a few pairs already— your parents, for instance. Yoruichi-san and Soi Fon are another.”

Urahara’s voice was steady, informative, the kind of voice Ichigo had learned a thousand things from in the time he’d trained with him.

Ichigo knew how to pick up on its hints.

“The romance,” he said, throat a bit tighter than it should have been. It wasn’t his fault this was a damn awkward topic, especially with a man he hadn’t spoken to in years. “Is that why you waited two years?”

The fan fluttered a little faster, as if to brush away the topic.

“Why Kurosaki-san, I didn’t think you would be so bold.”

“Urahara,”he growled, feeling annoyance slice at his patience. Ichigo never had much to begin with, and the idea that Urahara had waited two years to even speak to him was making his blood boil.

The man was one of the few people he could have spoken to, one of the few soul reapers who still lingered in Karakura. He could have slipped on a gigai and come to speak to Ichigo, could have kept him company in the lonely months where Ichigo had felt weak and useless.

Ichigo could have talked to him, damn it.

“I’m already a cradle robber, by Soul Society standards. Better to obey the rules of the living world,” the man admitted, each word sounding like it cost him honesty.

“Moron,” Ichigo said, smacking a hand across the back of Urahara’s head, hitting just under that damned hat. Soft hair brushed his fingers, and Ichigo resisted the urge to let his hand linger. He didn’t look at the way Urahara’s steady hands went still as stone for a heartbeat. “We could have just waited.”

Urahara blinked for a moment, eyes wide and startled. The wry smile that grew after made Ichigo’s mouth twitch. “Well I didn’t think you’d have the patience for that, Kurosaki-san.”

Ichigo felt a flush crawl up his face, burning like fire and fury. He wanted to groan, wanted to smack the quiet smile off Urahara’s face. Did the man really think Ichigo would—

He finished the thought aloud, scowl bright and damning. He felt more energy than he had in months, sitting in the quiet of a silent shop.

“Did you think I’d jump you just because of some gold scars? Damn it Urahara, I have jumped you in a few years anyway.”

Urahara laughed, bright and startled. It was the most honest sound Ichigo had heard from him in years, and he wanted to hear it a thousand times. He didn’t want years to pass again, without the people he wanted to protect.

“Well, Kurosaki-san. That wasn’t the only reason, of course. I had the patience to wait, but you are terribly attractive. I didn’t want the temptation, either.”

Damn him, Ichigo thought, as the blush crawled across his neck like the warmth of a sun. That was the beginning, the first blush of many. It was the first kiss of many too, as Ichigo regained the strength he’d lost and spent long days learning to patch together the scabs on his soul until they healed over in gold.

He learned to feel again, even as war knocked at his door and made him raise his sword.

⊱ ━━━━.⋅❈⋅.━━━━ ⊰

It was after the war, when fresh scars marked Kisuke’s face like a child had sewn down his cheek with an unsteady hand, that Ichigo held him close enough to break. It wasn’t the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last— they had lifetimes stretching before them now, and Kisuke would ensure it stayed that way.

But it was the first time Ichigo’s hands trembled, as they held him. The man traced the new scars on his face, fingers light and careful. They were furious too, as furious as they had been in the aftermath of a battle when Kisuke’s body had been pulled from the rubble of city that shouldn’t have been.

They felt afraid, for all that Ichigo was the strongest thing in three realms.

Kisuke looked at Ichigo, and wondered what he would have destroyed, if the man hadn’t survived. He wondered if anything would have survived that. Kisuke was a man of a thousand plans, but he would plan the world into death, if Ichigo died too.

Calloused fingers soothed those thoughts away, rubbing over his skin and cradling his face. Ichigo filled so many of the cracks in him with gold, and honed the finest parts of him sharper.

Ichigo was far too good of a man, for a old soul like Kisuke.

But that’s alright. Kisuke was too greedy to let him go, when his marks lined Ichigo’s skin. He ran his fingers across the largest scar, round and beautiful in Ichigo’s chest. He watched it glimmer, watched it catch the morning light and glow like fire. He ran his hand over it like it was important, like it’s as much fo a treasure as Ichigo is.

He watched it, and felt the guilt of that mark. He felt the warmth of it too, until Ichigo reached for his wrist to hold those fingers in place.

He watched, until warm eyes watched him.

A hundred cuts lined Ichigo’s body, in the light of a lazy morning. A hundred, glimmering cuts, laced with gold like poison.

Kisuke still wished he could wash them away, and the guilt with them. He wished he hadn’t had to mark Ichigo like this, hadn’t had to train him for battle.

But he could never not wish for Ichigo, if he lived a thousand years. And now, in the aftermath of victory, he could afford to care.

Kisuke could have this. Kisuke could have Ichigo.

**Author's Note:**

> Come hit me up on [my server](https://discord.gg/7tn2ywb) for prompts and general tomfoolery, and my [twitter](https://twitter.com/gotcocomilk) or [tumblr](https://thehoardofthegreatdragon.tumblr.com) for stupidity. 
> 
> I love hear if I wrote a particularly captivating or interesting line-- feel free to include it in a comment to feed your friendly neighborhood writing monster.


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